Improving V700 scans - thinking out aloud

[SMBooth]

I was thinking aloud (not always a good idea) that if i remove the glass plate from the V700 scanner and then wetmount the negatives to the underside of a piece of glass which is set to the same height as the original glass plate.
So the scanner only see the negative and the scanning light passes through glass - fluid - negative from the top.
Thoughts? (besides dust in the scanner)

Shane

 

[OzJohn]

I've seen this suggested before and cannot for the life of me see where the advantage, if any, lies. The Epson scanners are pretty good but don't ever forget what they really are - pretty good document scanners that have been modified to also scan film. Within their limitations they can produce a good result but I doubt that fluid mounting the film would offer any improvement. The result could actually be worse. OzJohn

 

[chuck94022]

The proposal (and I've considered it myself, as have others) is to remove the platen glass, so there is no glass between the scanning lens and the film (wet mounting versus dry mounting is orthogonal to the discussion).

Rather than mounting the film where the platen was, the film would need to be positioned at the plane of precise focus, which is pretty much never at the platen. The mechanics are a bit interesting, but I think it is possible. What I don't know is whether the scanning lenses are calibrated to take into account the diffraction (if any) of the platen glass.

Regarding fluid mounting versus dry mounting - with the v700, there is a small improvement, assuming you are also positioning the film in the plane of sharpest focus. But the difference is small, and probably lost if the resulting scan is downsized. On the other hand, I've found wet mounting to be a pretty fast process using betterscanning holders once you get the hang of it, and it deals with flatness very nicely, even with very curled roll film. I don't do it with all scans, but don't mind taking that step for my finest scans.

 

[Doug Fisher]

There are lots of posts about this around the different forums. Making a valid/accurate "apples to apples" set of comparison scans is very difficult but necessary in order for you to make an accurate evaluation. Here is my experiment on an Epson 3200:

Take Out Remove Removing Glass From Flatbed Scanner Test Example Results

Doug